#23 Try Yoga, #33 Run 30 Miles, #32 2000 Situps

I've never been much of an athlete.  I'm honestly not really ashamed to admit it-- I feel like I have plenty of skills in other areas.  It wasn't entirely my fault either: I never really had much of an opportunity to participate in many organized sports while I was growing up-- my dad didn't really want me to be involved in them.  And by the time I was old enough to choose what I wanted to be involved in, I wasn't really good enough to join any of the sports teams in my relatively big school district.  I could be bitter about it, but even if I had the choice I don't think I would have wanted to be very involved in sports.  Like I said, I have natural abilities in other things-- but not really that.

For the most part, I think I was a relatively active kid anyway.  I spent a lot of time running around outside, and when I got older I used to go on a lot of long bike rides.  But I never intentionally or regularly exercised.  And when you get older, it inevitably becomes harder to find time as your life becomes more structured and busy.  During college especially, I attempted to start a routine and run regularly.  But it was nearly impossible during some semesters when I was trying to balance work, homework, school and music activities and barely even had time to sleep.  I figured that when I graduated I would have all the time in the world and I'd join a gym-- but that was definitely not true, and I never did.

This last year, though, I decided I needed to make drastic changes to my lifestyle if I wanted to live a long healthy life.  Many of the changes I made were diet related- as I wrote about before- and overall I was able to lose about 12 pounds!  Which I had never done before.  But I also made an effort to spend more time exercising.

The overall goal was to make working out a part of my weekly routine.  I didn't set incredibly high goals for myself-- I wasn't trying to train for a marathon or anything.  I just wanted to try to fit things like this in to my lifestyle.  Honestly, I don't think I actually accomplished this.  In my crazy, extremely busy, ever-changing life, it was incredibly difficult to do things consistently.  But I still think that I gained a lot from the time I put in.

The first thing I tried to incorporate was running.  Like I said, it wasn't an entirely new habit-- I've gone through phases in life where I ran every other day, and then phases where I didn't run at all.  It had been only been a few months since I had been in that habit, so it wasn't too difficult to pick it up again.  At first I used the free fitness center in my apartment complex.  But I spent so much time at Brian's place with him and my pets that it ended up being even more expensive to drive back and forth than it was to pay for a membership to a gym by his apartment.  So I joined LA Fitness and worked out with my friend Amy several times.  I've honestly never worked out with other people before then.  I'm usually too embarrassed to let my friends see how out of shape I am. :)  But it actually gave me much more incentive to go, and more incentive to meet my goals.  She also encouraged me to do things that I normally wouldn't have done by myself-- like lift weights.  So overall it was a very good experience!

The gym itself was a terrible terrible experience.  I was harrassed repeatedly by a sales person who didn't seem to realize that I had already signed up (he left voicemails on my phone about 15 times-- no exaggeration) and then I was repeatedly harrassed by a personal trainer who wanted to work with me.  I paid on a weekly basis, so I canceled my membership when I went on my two week vacation... and of course they charged me for an extra week.  It wasn't a misunderstanding, either, because they sent me an email outlining what I still owed and when my membership was canceled.  And then proceeded to take more money out of my account.  So I filed a claim, got my money back, and put a stop payment on the company... and decided it wasn't worth it to be a member after all. :(

It took me a few months to start running again.  I initially thought I would run outside since the weather was starting to be really nice again, but I realized I have a much harder time running outside than on a treadmill-- I need to distract myself with TV/music otherwise I focus the entire time on how much I hate running.  I just kept putting it off and putting it off until I only had a few weeks left before my lease was up.  So I decided I had to finish before then.  And then of course I got the flu which turned in to bronchitis and lasted two weeks.  And by the time I was feeling well enough, I had about three consecutive days to finish the last 6 miles.  Which is doable-- I always run 2 miles every time I run.  But between the stress of cleaning and moving out and still feeling somewhat under the weather, I was worried I wouldn't feel up to coming in every single day.  So what did I do?  I ran all 6 miles at once!  Which may not seem like much, especially to people who train for half marathons, etc.  But I had never run more than 2 miles, and I had not run at all for a couple months.  I have no idea how I did it.  So while I didn't end up developing a routine like I was hoping, I proved to myself that I am capable of running long distances and pushing myself WAY further than I had been before.

While I wasn't able to run as consistently as I wanted, I was able to set up a weekly yoga routine.  I always loved the idea of taking yoga classes-- I knew it involved a lot of stretching, clearing your mind, and relieving stress and I thought that would be something that would very much benefit me.  Toward the beginning of my bucket list, I bought a yoga video for myself-- just to see what it was like.  I did it once, and realized that it was not a one time thing.  It was something you trained yourself to do and work on over a period of time.  There was never really a good time for me to do it, though.  My dog would always climb on top of me while I was doing poses at Brian's, and I knew Brian would laugh at me if he ever found me doing it when he came home from work.

And then my work began hiring a yoga instructor to teach classes once a week after work.  It was only about $5 a week and they supplied the mats and everything else.  You just needed to show up.  At first I was too shy to go-- most of the people who went were from a different department, so I didn't really know anyone.  But I eventually decided I would go anyway.  And it has been an awesome experience!  It was way more work than I imagined-- there were a couple days that I went home and realized every single muscle in my body was too sore to move.  But, as a whole, it makes me feel really good.  I can see how much I have improved since I have started to go.  And I also was able to meet a few people in my office that I probably would have never otherwise talked to.  What I especially like about yoga, though, is that I look forward to it-- which is something I never do when I'm working out in any other way.  It's something that I can see myself WANTING to do consistently.  So if I gained anything from my "exercise" goals this year, it would definitely be adding this to my life.

I also completed my 2000 crunches.  And then stopped when I reached my goal-- mostly because between that and yoga, my stomach was constantly sore.  I felt like yoga was sufficient in working on my core anyway-- especially when they began offering it twice a week for the same price.  Even though I didn't incorporate that "routine" into my life either, I actually can see a difference in the shape of my stomach!  Between this and losing weight, it has been really encouraging to see for the first time RESULTS after working so hard.  It gives me so much more incentive to keep going.

Overall, I was able to accomplish each little goal, but I wasn't able to accomplish the overall goals that I hoped to incorporate in my lifestyle.  I was, however, able to take so many more things out of these experiences than I envisioned.  Like I said before, I proved to myself that I am capable of so much more than I gave myself credit for-- I am able to run several miles at a time, I am able to physically change the shape of my body.  So while incorporating the routine in to my life may be a very long-term process, I have so much more incentive to continue than I ever have before.  And that in itself is life changing.